- Electric Vehicle Growth Outlook Slows As US Regime Pulls Back On Subsidies
Source: Business Today [Malaysia]
“The global outlook for electric vehicle demand has been cut for a second year in a row, with policy shifts in the United States driving a significant downgrade to long-term expectations, according to BloombergNEF. The latest forecast points to a slower pace of electrification across major automotive markets, even as overall adoption continues to rise. … EV sales are now expected to account for just 17% of [US] passenger vehicle sales by 2030, down sharply from 27% in last year’s forecast and far below earlier expectations of 48%. The revision reflects a cumulative loss of around 14 million EV sales through 2030 compared with previous projections, highlighting how quickly policy changes are reshaping the market outlook. Several policy adjustments are behind the slowdown. The $7,500 federal tax credit for EV buyers has expired, fuel economy standards have been eased, and efforts to limit California’s ability to set its own emissions rules are adding further uncertainty.” (06/16/26)
- Poland: Russian artist, critic of Putin, murdered
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“A Russian artist critical of Vladimir Putin and the Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has been shot and killed in the eastern Polish town of Biała Podlaska, a prosecutor has said. Five shots were fired at the victim, including one to the head, in the attack on Monday, said Marcin Kozak, a spokesperson for the district prosecutor in Lublin. Two Belarusians have been detained but not charged in connection with the case, he added. Local media identified the victim as Robert Kuzovkov, who was also known by his artistic pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, a Russian artist and performer known for his criticism of the Russian leader.” (06/16/26)
- Yum Brands sells Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital and Yum China for $2.7 billion
Source: CNBC
“Yum Brands on Tuesday announced it is selling Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital for roughly $1.5 billion. The deal excludes the pizza chain’s locations in mainland China; Yum China will acquire those in a separate transaction for about $1.2 billion. The deals cap off years of struggles for Pizza Hut, which has weighed on Yum’s overall financial performance. In the U.S., the pizza chain has transitioned from the sit-down format and salad bars of yore to focus on delivery and carryout — far behind the curve. … The deal severs Pizza Hut’s decades-long ties to Taco Bell and KFC, its sister brands in Yum’s portfolio.” (06/16/26)
- EU formally launches accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova
Source: Firstpost [India]
“Ukraine and Moldova took a major step towards joining the European Union on Monday as the bloc formally launched the accession process for both countries, opening negotiations that will require years of political and institutional reforms. For Kyiv, the move comes as it continues to fight Russia’s invasion and pursues EU membership as both a security guarantee and a pathway towards deeper integration with the West. The launch of the process was marked by an intergovernmental conference in Luxembourg attended by Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka.” (06/16/26)
- Italy: Seven Arrested Over Anarchist Network Linked to Winter Olympics Rail Sabotage
Source: US News & World Report
“Italian police have arrested seven people accused of belonging to an anarchist militant network and carrying out sabotage on a high-speed railway line during the Winter Olympics in February. In a statement on Tuesday, police said a judge had ordered five suspects to be held in prison and two placed under house arrest. The charges include terrorist association and subversion of the democratic order. Police said two of those arrested were accused of taking part in a February 14 attack on the Rome-Florence high-speed rail line. According to investigators, the sabotage was carried out using improvised explosive devices, causing severe damage to infrastructure estimated at €455,000 ($528,000). The attack led to train delays of more than an hour during the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, which ran from February 6 to 22.” (06/16/26)
- Trump Breaks It, We Pay for It: The Cost of Cleaning Up the Deep State’s Mess
Source: Rutherford Institute
by John & Nisha Whitehead“The American taxpayer has become the cleanup crew for the American Police State. We pay for the constitutional violations. We pay for the wars. We pay for the lawsuits, the settlements, the cover-ups, the damage control, the reconstruction, the overreach, the incompetence and the corruption. And when government officials are finally called to account for their misconduct, we pay for that, too. That is the dirty little secret of government accountability in America: even when the government loses, the government does not really pay. ‘We the people’ do. This is not a problem invented by Donald Trump.” (06/16/26)
- Libertarians Are Wrong to Support an “Ellis Island” Immigration-Control System
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“On the issue of immigration, there are two completely different positions within the libertarian movement. One position favors a government-controlled, government-managed system in which federal officials centrally plan the numbers and characteristics of immigrants that will be permitted to enter the United States. The other position is commonly known as ‘open borders.’ This position is based on the principles of economic liberty and the free market. … Some libertarians attempt to ‘straddle the fence’ by endorsing what they call an ‘Ellis Island’ type of immigration-control system. … it’s not freedom — not genuine freedom. That’s a problem for libertarians, who purport to favor freedom, especially economic liberty and free-market principles.” (06/16/26)
- Brexit’s paradoxical consequence: The unloved colossus of the City matters more than ever
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Miles Saltiel“Ten years after Brexit, Britons must choke back an indigestible irony. Leaving the EU has been an unexpected success for those who voted against it: the prosperous Southeast, beneficiaries of the unloved colossus of London’s financial services. But it has been a disaster for those who voted for it, the left-behind of the neglected suburbs and provinces. Two reasons explain this paradox. First, the Brits let Barnier walk all over them on the backward-looking issues which dominated exit negotiations and regulate the rustbelt. Second, Brussels discovered that if it wanted to carry on its prodigal ways, it couldn’t do without London’s capital markets.” (06/16/26)
- Iran: Another Trophy for Trump’s “First” Shelf?
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“US president Donald Trump loves being ‘first.’ Whenever something newsworthy happens, big or small, in fact or in fantasy, he reliably touts it as being unprecedented in American, possibly even world, history, and a either a personal, positive accomplishment or an unjustified persecution (‘witch hunt’). … now, he’s the first president to oversee US surrender in not one, but two, wars.” (06/16/26)
- Economic Warfare, Militarized Diplomacy Are Brutal and Malfunctioning Tools
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Snider“On September 15, 1970, Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to ‘make the economy [of Chile] scream.’ (CIA Director Richard Helms’s actual note of the conversation can be seen here). But it wasn’t the economy that screamed: it was people. ‘The economy’ is an abstraction. The concrete reality of sanctions and embargos is people who are starving. Driving people to starvation has become the foreign policy of the United States.” (06/16/26)
- Who Really Won (or Is Winning) the American-Persian War?
Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis“Historian Will Durant on the ancient Persian empire: ‘[It is not] natural that nations diverse in language, religion, morals, and traditions should long remain united; there is nothing organic in such a union, and compulsion must repeatedly be applied to maintain the artificial bond. In its two hundred years of empire, Persia did nothing to lessen this heterogeneity, these centrifugal forces; she was content to rule a mob of nations, and never thought of making them into a state…’ (Our Oriental Heritage, 382). I have no objection to trying to prevent dangerous governments, run by questionably civilized radicals, from having nuclear weapons. Actually, I’d prefer to see nuclear weapons completely eradicated from this planet. But unfortunately, humans have this overwhelming lust to kill each other, and some, like communists and other barbarians, like to do it in massive numbers, when possible. So, civilized people must be protected against such.” (06/16/26)
- Accountability Loops
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“You’ve heard of a feedback loop. The thermostat is a classic example. It senses the room, compares the reading to the target, and then acts to close the gap. Output bends back to become input. The system corrects itself because information about how it’s doing reaches the part that can do something about it. Now consider a particular kind of feedback loop, the kind bound up with human performance. Call it an accountability loop. Its defining feature is that the person responsible for an outcome feels its consequences. Do well, and good things follow. Fail, and the failure lands on you. The signal returns to its source.” (06/16/26)
- Cutting the Red Tape
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler“For the last couple of years, the EU has been on a mission to make European businesses more competitive through a process it calls ‘simplification.’ This means slashing red tape — especially in the form of reporting and compliance obligations — by 25% for all companies, and at least 35% for SMEs. Backed by Germany, Italy, and the Nordic countries, the project is said to have already saved EU companies €15 billion in administrative costs, almost halfway to the €37.5 billion savings goal set by Brussels for 2029.” (06/16/26)
- How Pakistan proved its mediation skills
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“It’s been more than 100 days since the United States and Israel launched their first wave of attacks against Iran. With Iran and the U.S. now agreeing to sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday, it will likely be another 60 days before a conclusive end to the war is in sight. Given the thorny issues between the two countries – especially the still-unsettled matter of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program – finalizing a peace deal in the 60-day ceasefire window is a considerable challenge. If the envisioned ceasefire holds, and oil shipments move smoothly through the Strait of Hormuz, a longer period to work out all the details might not be a bad thing for what one analyst described as ‘the slow institutional work of conflict transformation.'” (06/15/26)
- Trump handcuffs congressional Republicans to the SAVE Act
Source: USA Today
by Chris Brennan“Trump insisted the FISA 702 renewal must be linked to his top priority, the SAVE America Act, a clearly unconstitutional federalization of elections designed to make it harder for Americans to vote.” [editor’s note: Don’t pass either of them — “problem” solved – TLK] (06/16/26)
- Polling on Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris should alarm Californians
Source: California Post
by staff“As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair aptly said: A good way to measure a country is how many people want to get in, and how many want to get out. The same can be said of a state. And when it comes to California, people are increasingly opting for ‘out.’ The state is unaffordable, with a declining quality of life, a long list of crises and a failed yet arrogant governing class. It’s against this backdrop that Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom remain the front-runners for the 2028 presidential nomination, according to a Center Square Voters’ Voice poll. Per the early-June survey, 27% of registered Democratic and left-leaning independent voters favor Harris, followed by ‘not sure’ at 17% and Newsom at 14%. California voters might ask themselves: If a train-wreck (2024) presidential candidate and a plastic, egocentric governor are the best this state can offer, then what exactly are we doing here?” (06/15/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/15/opinion/poll-on-gavin-newsom-kamala-harris-should-raise-alarm/
- The Infectious Disease Frenzy
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell“If you had a heart attack in the 1960s, you got some morphine for pain and a firm mattress, a bit of nitroglycerin under the tongue or some basic drugs to steady an erratic heartbeat. Now you will be rushed into a maze of tubes and monitors, clot-dissolving drugs and pacing wires, multiple modes of imaging followed perhaps by rapid surgery to remove a persisting blockage. Far fewer people die; it’s all good and considered worth the money. The world of infectious diseases is very different. It faces an intrinsic market failure. While an increasingly old and fat population ensures a growing cardiac disease market, infectious diseases are on an inexorable decline.” (06/16/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-infectious-disease-frenzy/
- Obama’s legacy project offers little hope for Chicago’s South Side residents
Source: Fox News
by Corey Brooks“The Obama Presidential Center will open soon to the public in Jackson Park, Illinois, an $850 million gleaming monument to one man’s legacy. Yet for the families of Woodlawn, South Shore and the rest of Chicago’s South Side, there are many unhappy faces and concerns. Some of us wonder how this will better our neighborhood. Ever since the monument was announced, the local residents have dealt with unfulfilled promises, rising rents, displacement fears and continued violence. We have a right to be skeptical. After all, it’s common sense. For many of us, the varnish that Barack Obama once had as the first Black president of the United States has worn off. Many of us remember how Obama first came to these streets as a community organizer. What lasting impact did he leave? Very little.” (06/16/26)
- Trump is blowing his chance to make peace in Ukraine
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh“When Donald Trump arrived in the White House in January 2025, securing a quick end to the war in Ukraine was near the top of his foreign policy agenda. Despite political backlash, he pushed ahead with this objective early in his second term by resuming dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin and initiating parallel diplomatic tracks with Kyiv and Moscow. Eighteen months later, however, peace talks have stalled and the war has only escalated. U.S. distraction in the Middle East is to blame for the most recent setback, but the failure of Trump’s initiative has deeper roots. Simply put, Trump’s efforts in Ukraine to this point have been counterproductive, pushing peace further off rather than bringing it closer.” (06/16/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-russia-ukraine-negotiations/
- Nearly All Monetary Rules Say the Fed Should Raise Rates
Source: The Daily Economy
by Matthew Schaffer“Continued inflation, hawkish regional bank presidents, and 11 of 12 monetary policy rules suggest the Fed should raise rates. The price of the Fed’s ‘patience’ could be paid economy wide.” (06/16/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/nearly-all-monetary-rules-say-the-fed-should-raise-rates/
- Turning the Clock Back
Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael Lucchese“Richard Weaver understood that the best defense of tradition also requires a defense of liberty.” (06/16/26)
- Debate: Bryan Caplan v. Garett Jones on immigration
Source: Bet On It
Debate at the University of Austin. (06/16/26)
- Show-Me Institute Podcast, 06/16/26
Source: Show-Me Institute
“Risk, Reform, and Public Safety in Missouri with Doug Burris.” (06/16/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 06/16/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“The Everything Bubble: Are We Near The End?” (06/16/26)
- Cato Podcast, 06/16/26
Source: Cato Institute
“The Retirement System That Works Against You.” (06/16/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/retirement-system-works-against-you
- Capital Record, episode 304
Source: National Review
“Concentration of Power and Elon Musk’s Trillion-Dollar Net Worth.” (06/16/26)
- The Good Fight, 06/16/26
Source: Yascha Mounk
“Samuel Moyn on Why Old People Are Ruining America.” (06/16/26)